This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.

Twitter will be notifying the affected users for resetting the passwords and their old passwords will no longer work. Now, if you have received such an email from Twitter, immediately change your password and make sure that it is a strong password. A strong password should have at least 8 characters, should be alphanumeric and should contain upper case letters, lower case letters and special characters. You could also use services like LastPass and 1Password to generate and manage passwords.

As of now, we don’t know how they were able to breach Twitter’s security. Twitter says that it was not an isolated incident and that the attacks were highly sophisticated. Just two weeks ago, major newspapers such as New York Times and Washington Post suffered data breaches which allegedly originated from China. So far, there are no reports that these attacks are linked.

Nithin is a blogger and a Windows security enthusiast. He is currently pursuing Bachelors in Electronics and Communication. Apart from technology his other interests include reading and rock music. His Twitter handle is @nithinr6

Nithin Ramesh has written
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